*I’m hiding behind the screen with my 140 characters* #TheProfileProject #5
Vic Cutting tells the story behind her Twitter and Facebook profiles: CREATIVE ACTIVITY IS MORE THAN A MERE CULTURAL FRILL, IT IS A CRUCIAL FACTOR OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE, THE MEANS OF SELF-REVELATION, THE BASIS OF EMPATHY WITH OTHERS; IT INSPIRES BOTH INDIVIDUALISM AND RESPONSIBILITY, THE GIVING AND THE SHARING OF EXPERIENCE Tom Hudson (1979), British Columbia Exhibition of Children’s Art catalogue. “I picked up this post card at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park a few years ago, and all I knew about it was that it had “Cardiff College of Art Foundation Studies: Experimentation with materials 1968” written on the back, from the collection of Tom Hudson. “It was at a time where I was considering retraining as an art therapist and was obsessing about the importance of process art, especially within my work with young people. Tom Hudson’s ideas resonated with me. “I like it as my Twitter photograph, I like that it is a personal image, and intimate, although that’s the opposite of how I feel about twitter. My Facebook profile is full of photos of my kids and funny (to me) thoughts that I want to share with my friends. “My Facebook profile photos are consistently oblique, but that’s because work advise us not to have photographs of ourselves. So it’s interesting to find photos that have personal meaning but don’t show people. I enjoy taking photos, I find it relaxing, a creative activity, going back to the original quote. I liked finding the shadow of me in the leaves, me – yet not me. A leaf yeti. “Twitter is more about politics, work and music for...
*I was angry, very angry* #TheProfileProject #4
Sue Sibbald tells the story behind her Twitter profile: “I was angry, very angry because a psychiatrist had told me I had a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder but the therapy I thought would help me was not available to me. My local mental health NHS trust did not provide it. “I was on Facebook at the time and discovered many other people could not access therapy of any sort all over the country so I decided to get active and set up a Facebook page to try to campaign for better services. I thought better to channel my anger in a productive way. “I thought up the name one Sunday afternoon, it was a bit of a eureka moment – Borderline Personality Disorder Fighting For Services or ( For F***s sake) It still makes me giggle because it’s a bit naughty, provocative, challenging. “I soon went on to Twitter and began to tweet about the lack of services and in doing so made friends. I found my peers and that mattered. “I decided to use the fist as my avi as it signified the fight, against lots of odds and it just felt right. I think it showed my anger also that was bubbling up inside. I often say I am driven by my anger or how unfair life can, be but I change it into something positive. “A funny story – the first fist I used I nicked from somewhere but the guy found out so my now wife Julie made this one for me. “I subsequently set up a tweetchat called #BPDChat and this is still going...
#TheProfileProject #1 @natwm10
@natwm10 “Believe it or not, I struggle with social media, despite having a personal Twitter account and looking after three other work based accounts. I struggle because I always saw social media as a shouting post for the loudest and the brashest, I didn’t want to post mundane pictures or comments that didn’t mean anything. I then found out that it’s so much more than that. Twitter certainly is where I now go to find out about the latest news or to find information on professional matters or on anything that interests me really. I have had a Twitter account for around five years and I now have my third avatar. My first was a street sign that had the names of three villages on near where I live, with deep blue sky in the background. I have no idea why I put this on there but, I like where I live and perhaps, being quite sentimental, it reminded me of home. “I then got quite into Twitter, as well as meeting new people that shared the same interests as me (meeting being sharing the odd 140 word tweet). I remember at the time reading a lot about if there isn’t a real person in the avatar then other people can often think that they are maybe a tweet bot. Which is slightly odd really considering that my tweets were clearly from a Sheffielder! (thee, thy and reyt) So I changed my avatar to a slightly dodgy looking picture of me. There you are Twitter, instead of tweeting with a street sign, you are now tweeting with an uncomfortable looking man...Is social media helping people talk about mental health?
This week the Guardian published an article #timetotalk: Is social media helping people talk about mental health? to coincide with Time to Talk Day run by the Time to Change campaign. #timetotalk asked us all to spend five minutes talking about mental health so we can break down stigma and increase understanding. Time to Change have really embraced social tools to spread their message, as in this short film promoting #timetotalk I was struck by the question posed by the Guardian, as it gets to the heart of one of the themes I have been considering in my PhD research over the last few years. It also caused me to reflect that back in 2011 when I began my research, I would never have imagined such a headline would make it into the mainstream media. It is a reminder of how embedded online social networking has become in our day-to-day lives (at least for many of us) and evidence of the particular affordances of social media for people talking about difficult issues such as mental health. My online ethnographic research has primarily focused on a now defunct blog and the ecoystem of blogs that surrounded it. It’s another reminder of the fluid and impermanent nature of online social networks. During my fieldwork the conversation moved inexorably from the slower paced and asynchronous world of blogs (or madosphere as some called it at the time) towards the faster paced world of Twitter and real-time chats. What was once a space and set of practices that felt subversive and risky to many of its participants, is now increasingly bubble wrapped in professional...about.me
Victoria Betton
victoria betton
director mHabitat | NHS | social media & mental health doctorate | interested in digital inclusion | parma violets fiend | http://codesigndigitalhealth.co.uk
